


Build a Life on Top of That

by Twelve (Dodici)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, as in the murder is an excuse for the cheese, murder and cheese, no context we die like idiots, post-anime vagueness, you could read it as friendship but Togashi would be disappointed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27573850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dodici/pseuds/Twelve
Summary: While Leorio investigates a murder, Gon investigates Killua’s feelings—and isn’t that a much more challenging task.
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 8
Kudos: 90





	Build a Life on Top of That

**Author's Note:**

> *Looks at the fandom* I’m once again asking you to consider canonical Zoldyck awfulness—  
> I don’t know what this is supposed to be (and that's probably why i forgot it inside my drafts for two months) but I swear that the amazing [chubsthehamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chubsthehamster/profile) did her best to make it readable XD

After all this time, Gon still can’t decide if Leorio and Killua enjoy being rude to each other or it just comes naturally to them.

They always follow through with their plans of at least grab a meal together every handful of months to the point of changing schedules and taking transcontinental airships, but then they actually meet and act like this.

“Your whole life is a nuisance,” Killua says, face extremely serious. Leorio moves the phone away from his ear and growls.

“I have responsibilities, which I guess is a foreign concept to you—”

“Says the guy who helped me with my sister’s custody papers—”

“Which you asked me to do, because you know I have responsibilities and know how responsibilities work—”

Gon jumps between the two of them before they end up invading their hamster balls of personal space and become violent—Killua’s hamster ball is extremely wide and Gon and Alluka are usually the only ones really allowed inside without claws becoming a problem. 

“So, what happened?” he asks, one hand on Killua’s forearm and his best smile towards Leorio.

He sighs, head heavy as he puts the phone back inside the pocket of his suit. His face falls.

“They found a dead guy back at the hotel. Since it’s Association’s ground they wanted a doctor and a Hunter to go check it… Guess I’m really lucky, uh?”

Gon blinks and turns to Killua.

“The plan was to get lunch with the old man, not getting involved in murders,” he says, arms crossed, but he’s already rolling his eyes in resignation. “Actually, we shouldn’t get involved in anything—you promised.”

Gon smiles apologetically both toward him and Leorio, who stopped being a teenager but he’s definitely pretty far from being an old man in any capacity.

“Of course, Killua. I never break my promises, right? We’ll just take a look!”

*

To be honest, one look is more than enough to earn a pretty bad rest of the day.

It’s been a long time since the last time Gon saw a corpse and somehow it never really sank into him that corpses are dead, flesh that used to be a person.

In his mind, every corpse still has the shape of battered pieces sewed back together with nen—Kite’s corpse smelled exactly like this, back then, and it’s just another testament of how desperately Gon needed to believe he was still alive.

Killua doesn’t say anything. He’s inspecting the body with a critical eye, hands buried in his pockets and that air of disinterest he smears on his face every time he needs to look unaffected.

Leorio too has acquired some clinical detachment apparently, because he’s talking with the policemen, professional voice on.

“That’s a pretty awful death,” Gon says, studying the guy’s dangling feet. They hanged him from the ceiling by his wrists, his shadow is a swaying puddle on the green carpeting of the room. He’s a limp marionette and it really makes Gon feel sick in ways no carcass found in the forest ever could.

They kept some distance, hanging on the doorstep—better, the smell is already terrible enough.

Killua flickers Gon’s forehead and smiles.

“Are there non awful deaths I don’t know of?” he jokes, head tilted to analyze. “It doesn’t look like a nen ability did it, anyway. Maybe it’s just some boring settling of scores, those can look flashy. Even if doing it inside a Hunter facility is basically asking for troubles.”

Leorio comes back with a frown and a couple police-people following him like ducklings; they goggle at Gon when he smiles. That’s because Leorio looks both embarrassed and pleased by the fact that, evidently, he’s become the one in charge. So professional.

“Sorry, guys, no lunch for the wicked. I gotta figure out how the guy died—just go without me and we’ll catch up later, okay?”

“Positional asphyxia sounds like a fair bet,” Killua blurts. He’s still looking at the corpse, eyes narrowed. Leorio rolls his, while one of the officers frowns. Gon is sure that the policewoman on the left asked who the hell they even are.

Leorio waves at her.

“They’re both Hunters, it’s good—I can think at least of other five possible causes off the top of my head, so…”

“Well, they did break his legs,” Killua points out, and they’re all back at looking at him. “There are methods to avoid positional asphyxia, but once your legs are broken it becomes pretty impossible.”

“Which methods—no, why would you even know about that!” 

Killua deadpans so hard it almost makes a sound—the same sound of Kurapika’s eyerolling.

“What part of torture you didn’t understand when I told you that I’m trained to resist torture?”

They look at each other weird, Killua like he’s talking to a total dumbass and Leorio—he gapes, brain buffering until something snaps.

“Well. Not. Not this,” he says, and his eyes bounce to the corpse but find resistance when he tries to look Killua again. He frowns, pupils out of focus. “Why you—not this, not _you_.”

Gon feels a tingle on his tongue and a buzzing in his ears; he can’t divert his eyes until Killua snorts, amused, and crosses his arms behind his head. His voice holds a smirk that glimmers inside Gon’s chest, even if it isn’t helping him with breathing. 

“That’s weirdly flattering, thanks.” Of course he’s joking—Killua is always somewhat joking, whenever he wants to wriggle out of something. But he also sounds honest, and oddly fond.

Maybe that’s what makes Leorio sputter.

“Did your parents—you’re joking, right?”

Killua turns toward the policemen, but his fingers are already curled around Gon’s wrist.

“As much as I love to discuss my childhood in front of a bunch of strangers, I’d really like to go eat now. Have fun working, old man… Let’s go, Gon!”

Gon blinks; it feels like waking up.

“Yeah, right,” he says and shakes his head. He tries to smile at Leorio, but all that comes out is the pinch of strained muscles on his face. “Bye Leorio! Bye—ahm…” He skims over the people and the corpse and the swarming, busy room turned crime scene. “Bye, everybody! Have a good day!”

As good as finding a crucified corpse could be, probably.

*

Killua wants kebab, but maybe he actually wants pizza, but maybe they should go try that bakery back near the station or—

“You’re always so casual when you talk about it.”

Killua blinks and his gait falters for a second, surprised like from a sudden blow. Gon feels bad, but he always feels bad about it, about not asking, so maybe he should try and change that; maybe he should just ask.

Unsurprisingly, Killua shrugs.

“That was a joke, Gon. I mean, sarcasm,” he specifies, because Gon does have a bit of trouble at detecting that, to be honest. “I didn’t really want to discuss my childhood in front of strangers.”

He’s grinning, and they’re still amidst strangers on the road; Swardani is a busy city, and Gon feels a bit exposed here. But if he waits, even if it’s just to get kebab or whatever else Killua comes up with, the moment is going to be lost again one time too many.

“I get that,” he says, and steps a bit closer. “But I’m not a stranger.”

Killua blinks at the bikini displayed inside the shop window or maybe at his own reflection.

“Yeah, of course you aren’t. My bad,” he says and his smile turns apologetic. “Maybe I just don’t really like to discuss my childhood at all.”

Well. Gon nods. And swallows and squints at Killua’s incredibly purple shoes and the ridge of a scar that peers out of the hem of his pants. It could be from everything, even from falling off his skateboard, really.

“Of course. That’s fine… I mean, I get that.”

“Gon,” Killua says, and his voice really is soft, in a way that Gon hears only when he talks to his sisters. It makes him even angrier, but not at him.

“It’s just—I know it’s in the past, and I know that it’s not… but I really hate them,” he says, and tries hard to unclench his fists.

Killua is sizing him up with a tilted eyebrow.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Gon looks at him, as he rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah, whatever. It’s not like it changes anything, hating them or not,” he says. “To be honest, I’m just glad they left us alone, Alluka and me. That’s all.”

Gon takes a step back; he can feel his brow furrowing but he isn’t even sure why.

“I guess you’re right,” he says, and Killua is already sighing, eyes defiant as they skim toward the people walking by.

“So what’s bothering you?”

“I just… I don’t know,” Gon says. It’s frustrating. “Maybe it’s—the way it doesn’t seem to bother you. And I—it’s unfair to you because that hurt is yours and shouldn’t be about me. But I also don’t know if it’s really fine for you to always carry it around like that.” He lifts his gaze to Killua’s always carefully constructed slouched posture; even worse now that he's grown taller and longer. “Isn’t it painful? I couldn’t do anything before because I wasn’t there, but I’m here now, so, is it still painful? I just want to take the pain away.”

They shouldn’t be talking this out in the middle of the street, Gon knows that from Killua’s creeping blush and he feels bad for picking it up like this, and for being so aggressively invested and so forceful, always so damn forceful and so selfish, because of course he would make this too about himself and what he can do instead—

“You are,” Killua says, eyes elusive but voice surprisingly clear. “You did. I’m here, right? You are the one who took me out of that house, quite literally.”

“But I didn’t—and is that enough? Is it really enough for you to be out of the house?”

That’s what Gon needs to know: is that enough? Is he enough, because that sounds like bullshit. But Killua is looking at him now, like the answer should be already inside Gon’s head somewhere. 

“I don’t care about the fucking house, Gon. I’ve got a home—I have you, I’m fine.”

Killua’s face is a deep shade of red but why is it Gon the one who feels like he’s going to burst?

Killua goggles at him in clear panic.

“What the—what are you crying about now!”

And Gon isn’t crying—only he’s laughing too and he’s a dumbass, probably, but that should be old news, right?

“We should go get kebab and bring one back for Leorio,” he says, one hand busy wiping away his cheeks and the other one stretched out.

Killua is still goggling at both, shoulders rigid and eyes open wide. He shakes his head and grabs the hand, decisive and still flushed red.

“What about pancakes instead. Can we have pancakes for lunch?”

Leorio would have something to say for sure, about hyperglycemia and cavities, but Gon isn’t a doctor—he’s actually just a bit over this side of in love, he thinks.

“We can have whatever you want,” Gon says and tries his best to make it sound like a promise he’s going to keep. 


End file.
